In Gmünd we have four studios available for artists to work and exhibit their latest creations. Artists stay in Gmünd for one or two months, or even longer, becoming part of town life and interacting with tourists and locals. Here they can concentrate on their work without the distractions of everyday life at home.

The four studios in Gmünd are:

1) Artist in Residence Studio Maltator

2) Gallery Studio Maltator Parterre

3) The Holzfalt Atelier

4) The Altstadt Gallery

There is some brief information about this year’s artists at the bottom of this page.

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE STUDIO MALTATOR

The Artist in Residence Programme in the Studio Maltator has special importance in the town. Since 1993, over sixty artists from around the world have taken the opportunity to spend two months in the exceptional atmosphere of this medieval gatehouse, working and displaying their latest art. During their stay, artists have an exceptional opportunity to acquaint themselves with Austrian culture and art outside the main urban centres while living in a busy and interested artistic milieu. They become part of our diverse cultural life, with opportunities for exchanges with local and exhibiting artists. At the end of the stay, an illustrated catalogue of all the works created while in Gmünd is produced and presented to the public as part of an exhibition.

Residence periods:

Artist-in-residence 1 May and June

Artist-in-residence 2 July and August

Artist-in-residence 3September and October

The two-storey studio is over the Maltator town gate, which is part of the intact medieval town wall. Accommodation consists of a furnished apartment on the second floor (c. 50 m²) and three studio rooms on the first floor (c. 50 m²). There is the opportunity to work outside in the small front garden. The studio rooms are equipped with electric heating and the apartment with a wood burning stove.

During their two-month stay the visiting artist has free use of the studio apartment and the studio rooms. The Cultural Initiative Gmünd covers accommodation and operation expenses, and also pays for an eight page A5 exhibition catalogue, as well as organizing an exhibition opening, printing and sending of invitations etc.In return, the visiting artist gives the Cultural Initiative an artwork created during their stay in Gmünd. The Artist in Residence is liable for travel expenses, health insurance, working materials and subsistence.

The positive feedback of former visiting artists confirms that the personal touch of the programme and the lively and homely atmosphere of the Artists´ Town Gmünd make this artists-in-residence programme unique in Austria.

GALLERY STUDIO MALTATOR PARTERRE

At the most
beautiful entrance to the city, the small guest studio in Maltator Parterre
offers each year space for artists to present their artworks and gives the
visitor a nice welcome to the city. In 2018, the studio accommodated the
Carinthian sculptor Johann Wieltsch from mid-May until end of September. Thanks
to his communicative manner the artist knows how to attract even not art
interested visitors to his work and to the cultural offers of Gmünd.

HOLZFALTATELIER GMÜND

The new
studio Holzfaltatelier Gmünd (literally the “wood folding studio”) made a wish
come true for the deceased founder of the Cultural Initiative Gmünd. The
construction of the wood studio for sculptors was generously supported by the
company Hasslacher Norica Timber. The architectural impressive studio for
sculptors and designers in front of the gates of the Artists’ Town Gmünd is
exhibition and working space at once. In 2018, there were invited Giorgio
Benedetti from Italy for six weeks and Michael Punz from Austria who just
graduated from master’s class for sculptors in Hallstatt, Salzburg. He is going
to take advantage of the new Holzfaltatelier from July until September.

ALTSTADT-GALLERY GMÜND

After two
years of reconstruction and renovation of a historical building in Gmünd’s old
town the Altstadt-Gallery was opened in 2009. The ambitious gallery owners
offered artists from the region an opportunity to exhibit their artwork in
those rooms. But due to tragic circumstances, the house was up to sale in 2013
and the municipality purchased it to ask the Cultural Initiative to find
artists who may exhibit there again. Since then, every year several artists
come for the Artist in Residence programme and work in those two beautiful
studio rooms. There are always two artists at the same time working and
displaying their latest works of art.

In 2018,
there are 9 artists from Germany, Austria, Great Britain and Italy invited.

OUR GUEST ARTISTS 2018

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE STUDIO MALTATOR

ÉLISE
BENARD

Woodcut and
painting, France

May and
June 2018

Vernissage:
TU, 26 June, 19.00 o’clock

French
artist Élise Benard, born in 1984 in Paris, applied for a studio space in 2018
at the suggestion of Séverin Krön, guest artist in the Maltator in 2015. She
studied art in Paris, did her master’s degree in 2009 and has been working
since than as freelance artist, specialized in woodcut and painting. So far,
she has only worked in France, where she has been part of numerous solo and
group exhibitions. The reason she applied for a stay in the Maltator is that
she longs to see beyond France's borders, to get to know new cultures and to
have exciting encounters. In Gmünd she wants to use her favourite woodcut
technique to develop a graphic documentation of the forest. In the form of a
"forest panorama", it will be dedicated to her artistic work during
her stay.

BIRGIT
SCHWEIGER

Painting,
Austria

July and
August 2018

Vernissage:
TU, 28 August, 19.00 o’clock

Birgit
Schweiger was born 1970 in Ried im Innkreis, Upper Austria, and studied at Art
University Linz. She lives and works as freelance artist in Linz. Her works can
be found for example in Museum Angerlehner in Upper Austria and in the art
collection of Linz. The artist, who mainly paints in acrylic technique, uses as
template her own photographs and sketches of forays into nature.

Birgit
Schweiger already worked in the Altstadtgalerie Gmünd in 2017 and experienced
then how many advantages a change of location has. It is important for her to
use the time in the guest studio intensively, to work on her own and without
too many distractions for being able to deal with new topics and things. What
also matters to her a lot is the interaction with other artists, including the
local artists.

ALFRED GRAF

Graphics
and painting, Austria

September
and October 2018

Vernissage:
TH, 25 October, 19.00 o’clock

Alfred
Graf, who was born in 1958 in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, and studied at the Academy
of Fine Arts in Vienna, has been exploring artistically sediments and rock
formations over years. His work has led him to landscapes all around the world,
including native Vorarlberg as well as the US state Kentucky, Island Sylt in
Germany or the Vesuvius in Italy. With Alfred Graf, the term “landscape
painting” gets a completely new meaning. For him, the landscape is not only the
subject but also material for his works. But where does nature stop and art
begin? This is the question that defines his artistic work.

GALLERY STUDIO MALTATOR PARTERRE

JOHANN
WIELTSCH

Wood
sculptures, Austria | Artist in Residence from May until September 2018

The artist
Johann Wieltsch from Carinthia has worked as wood sculptor for 20 years. The
result of his constant urge to come to
terms with figure, form and material was the constant growth of his own
sculptural vocabulary, which impressively manifests itself in powerful
sculptures. In order to meet his personal and also the different demands of the
respective special design and desired overall effect of his objects, he
extended the range of raw materials used to stone, glass and metal. His body
and nature figurations appear partly archaically unapproachable, partly
attractively graceful.

HOLZFALTATELIER GMÜND

GIORGIO BENEDETTI
Wood sculptor, Italy | Artist in Residence from May to June 2018

Giorgio
Benedetti was born in Piran/Istria in 1949. In 1968, he got the diploma
“Maestro d’Arte” at Art Academy Udine and has worked as freelance
sculptor ever since. He has already been part of national and
international exhibitions and his works can be found in various public
and private art collections in Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

MICHAEL PUNZ

Wood sculptor, Austria | Artist in Residence from July until September 2018

Born in 1990 in Upper
Austria, Michael Punz graduated from the College for Sculpting in
Hallstatt, Salzburg and worked as stone restorer at preservation of
historical monuments until 2016. In 2017, he did the master’s degree at
Master School for Sculpting in Hallstatt. Michael Punz has participated
in numerous national and international sculpting symposiums and was
happy to have his first own studio during summer in Gmünd.

ALTSTADT-GALLERY GMÜND

ART OF(F)
SCHOOL | Exhibition of the secondary school Gmünd

Photographs
and collages about Gmünd | 6 April to 4 May 2018

The
artistic group of the 4th grade of Gmünd’s secondary school invited the
cultural interested audience to a special exhibition. Within a creativity
project last year, many wonderful photographs and photo collages resulted and
were presented to the public by the pupils.

Thomas
Judisch, who was born in 1981, was already guest artist in Gmünd in autumn 2009.
During his stay in the Artist in Residence Studio Maltator, city life couldn’t be thought of
without his presence. No event he did not attend, no corner of the city he did
not visit. His sensational installations were remembered by many people, his
published catalogue shows impressively which artworks resulted from his two
months’ stay.

Nothing in
his works is as it seems, he is a master of irritations, of the Trompe l’œuil!
That’s how he became guest artist in the Altstadtgalerie and participant in the
theme-based exhibition 2018 in the Gallery Miklautz.

ANITA
KIRCHBAUMER

Abstract
painting, Austria | Artist in Residence from mid-May until end of June 2018

The artist,
who was born in 1961 in Villach, Carinthia, was a private student of prof.
Franz Schneeweiß for several years. She graduated from college for fashion
design with a master’s certificate. After that, she worked as an artistic
consultant for several fashion companies and later on, she dedicated herself to
painting. In Gmünd she again led two workshops for abstract painting.

“When I’m
painting, I dive into a richness of live. The outside retreats and I allow my
intuition to take over. In a constant play of colours and shapes the abstract
subjects change from flowing embodiments towards figurative ones – each of them
with its own character. Abstract painting invites the beholder to see in his
own way, to discover his images in mine. For me, art is something active, a
process which hasn’t ended with the last brush stroke, but in fact starts with
it. Art is energy!”

EVA STABER

Photography
and graphics, Austria | Artist in Residence from May until September 2018

The
Carinthian photographer Eva Staber studied at Vienna Federal Training and
Research Institute of Graphic Arts photography and audio-visual media. She
favours a technique called Lomography that likes to use imperfect image quality
on purpose and technical “disruptions” such as over- and underexposure or
blurs. Changes of colours and shapes let the borders to abstraction blur and
the depicted landscapes turn into highly poetic pictures.

The young
photographer Eva Staber came back to Carinthia after she had worked in a
professional photo studio in Vienna. For five months, she has her photo studio
in the Altstadtgalerie in Gmünd now. Here, she displays her photographical
works and Lomography series but takes as well photographical orders, offers
image processing or reproductions of old photographs and is happy to design any
kind of print jobs. As an experienced photographer, Eva Staber has already had
many jobs to publish artists’ catalogues. It is also her who produces each year
the tactful film intros about the great artists displayed in our City Tower
Gallery. As a competent art educator, she is available for the Cultural
Initiative Gmünd within the art education programme for the respective City
Tower Gallery exhibition, and the kids love her! In addition to that, she is
part of the Summer Academy Gmünd and offers creative photo workshops every
year.

JULIET VENTER

Icon
painting, Great Britain | Artist in Residence in July 2018

Juliet
Venter is a British artist, who has found a second home in Carinthia since July
2017. After a master’s degree for literature at University of Cambridge she
started as full-time icon painter in 2008. She enlarges and adapts the
techniques of medieval manuscript illumination to work on a bolder scale using her
own gesso panels. She uses historical pigments such as lapis lazuli and
vermillion, real gold leaf, and raised or tooled gilding. In her whimsical
pieces she has fun mixing up inspiration from medieval manuscripts with
contemporary naturalism. They are snapshots of the view from her workroom
window, celebrating the wildlife of the humble suburban garden: birds, rodents,
critters and the infinite variety of domestic cats. In the meantime, she has
become a real master in this metier, she is appreciated for her fine work and
the fantastic colours and holds workshops for icon painting on four continents.

The
Carinthian Artist studied German philology, art pedagogy and art history from
1980 until 1985 and has been living in Lower Austria as art pedagogue and free
lance artist. She has participated in numerous international workshops and has
been part of frequent group and single exhibitions in Austria, Germany and
Switzerland.

“The idea of being an Artist in Residence in
Gmünd has been in my mind for several years, and since I grew up in Carinthia
there is a strong connection with the landscape, the people and the language.
Dealing with my “roots”, communicating with people of the region and interested
visitors of the city but also having a certain distance to the familiar could
be a great enrichment for my personal artistic work. On the one hand, I hope
for an intense working phase and on the other hand I look forward to the possibilities
of networking. This is why I really like the combination of studio and gallery.
(…)”

PAOLA
LUCIANI

Film
animation & Illustration, Italy | Artist in Residence in September 2018

The artist,
born in Rome in 1964 and grown up in Rieti, studied film and cinematography in
Rome and specialised in animated films and short films from 1990 on. Since
then, she regularly works in an animation studio for film and television
companies in Italy. She received numerous awards for her short films and, by
now, she also works as illustrator for children’s books. Paola Luciani draws
thousands of individual pictures for one single short film and, while doing so,
she loses track of time. This is her method of processing her positive and
negative emotions and bringing them to paper. With her films, which are
characterized by poetic and psychologic issues, she has been invited to many
important international festivals. In 2012, her film “Island” received two
international awards for the best short film.

Already
last year, Paola Luciani was a guest artist in Gmünd. That was when two
larger-than-life-sized wall paintings in public space in Gmünd resulted. This
year, she offers a film workshop within the Summer Academy.

RUPERT
GREDLER

Painting,
Austria | Artist in Residence in October 2018

Rupert
Gredler grew up in Salzburg and studied Mathematics there, than changed to the
study of painting in Vienna and founded an artist group and an own gallery
(halle4). Gredlers works can be found in numerous public collections. The
artist who is especially known for portrait painting has already been Artist in Residence in the Maltator several years ago. He hopes to be able to completely
immerse in his work in the studio of the Altstadtgalerie since he is not always
able to do so during his everyday life in Salzburg. He also offers a workshop
of portrait painting within the Summer Academy.

VERENA
TEREKINA

Portrait
painting, Austria | Artist in Residence in October 2018

Verena
Terekina is young, unconventional and, concerning the painting, well-gifted.
Her teacher was her grandfather. With her great talent she already managed to
draw international attention to her. “In my portrait drawings I try to display
the expression, the life, the fates and the stories of the people, independent
of origin, religion or financial status. Interesting stories can be found
everywhere. I want to thank the Cultural Initiative Gmünd for the possibility
of a short stay in a studio, that really gave me new self-confidence!”